Five Deaths That Never Happened To Kenny
by Marcus Rowland
Summary: Long before South Park, the Highlander TV series had an immortal child called Kenny. How will he meet his end? Five short crossovers with The Borribles, Stargate, Batman, Buffy, etc. Warning - character death, violence, swearing, etc.
1. Chapter 1

**Five Deaths That Never Happened to Kenny**

By Marcus L. Rowland

**Introduction**

Some people find it hard to believe that one of the occasional characters in the Highlander TV series was Kenny, an immortal child, born in 1172 AD and first killed when he was ten, one of the most vicious headhunters on the show. But Kenny was real, appearing long before South Park had introduced his more famous namesake, and made it into two episodes, The Lamb and Reunion. He probably has fewer fanfic credits than any other recurring character in the show, maybe because he was thoroughly unlikeable. This collection of crossover ficlets sets out to correct that omission. But with a name like that there's only one way these stories could go...

All characters belong to their respective creators - this story may not be distributed on a profit-making basis.

**1: London**

(Crossover with _The Borribles_ by Michael de Larrabeiti)

Kenny's on the run from MacLeod when he hears the rumours. They say there's an underworld, a race of killer kids, immortal but not part of the Game, living wild in the streets in London. It sounds like Kenny's idea of heaven. He decides to go looking for them.

Getting to England's difficult for a kid on his own, but eventually he finds a ship heading there from Boston, and manages to stow aboard, stealing food from the lifeboat supplies as it slowly wallows across the Atlantic. For once luck is on his side and nobody sees him or finds his hiding-places, so he doesn't have to kill anyone. He hates that, but aboard ship it's best to keep a low profile. By the time the ship gets to London he's spoiling for a fight.

The first night in port Kenny's waiting to slip ashore when he hears a slight rattle of one of the mooring chains. There's someone climbing aboard, child-sized and cat-nimble. He can't feel a Quickening, but there's something about the visitor; maybe a faint trace of the same power. Kenny waits, and eventually the boy(?) climbs into his lifeboat. Transfixed in the light of Kenny's torch his ears have pointed tips, his skin a faint tinge of green, his eyes a little mad.

"Who the hell are you?" asks Kenny, drawing his sword.

The kid has a mean-looking dagger, probably a better weapon in the confined space. He stares at Kenny, then grins and says "I'm Shrinkage." He seems to be waiting for Kenny to say something, when he doesn't he looks at him suspiciously and says "Show me your ears."

"Why?"

"If you have to ask you're not Borrible."

"Okay," says Kenny. "Maybe I'm not. But maybe I'll want to be, if you tell me more about it. Let's just put the weapons away first..." Kenny's persuasive and likeable when he has to be.

He spins a tale of a boy abused by his parents, stowing away on a ship to get away from them. By morning he's helping Shrinkage to row his old rubber dinghy, and has heard the story of Shrinkage's name three times. It was boring to begin with, a tale of pilfering on the docks, and doesn't get better with repetition. He knows a little more about Borribles; there are tribes, and one of them comes from the Wandle, an underground river that flows into the Thames. That's where they're going now, to meet the tribal chieftain, a warrior called Flinthead. Kenny has a theory... the leaders probably have the most power, the best Quickenings. Probably not as much as someone like MacLeod or Amanda, but enough to give him a much-needed boost... and easy pickings for someone who's been fighting adult immortals for eight hundred years. The lightning and explosions will scare the Wandles, make them obey him. After that he'll go after the chieftains of the other tribes, and unify them under his leadership. In the end they'll probably thank him for it, he's already heard enough to know that Flinthead's a paranoid psychopath, ruling by fear. Of course they'll eventually fear Kenny even more...

He's still plotting when Shrinkage moors the boat on the banks of the foetid underground stream and they head down a sewer. Three minutes later they meet the first patrol, four kids that look about nine wearing waders, orange jackets and metal helmets made of cut-up beer cans, carrying wooden sticks tipped with sharp spikes, and Shrinkage says "This bleeder says he wants to be a Borrible, but I don't think he's even a kid. I reckon he's one of them midgets the rozzers 'ave been trying to plant on us."

"That right?" says one of the yellow-jacketed guards. Kenny feels something jab his back, and looks down. Shrinkage is holding his knife to Kenny's kidneys. As he reaches for his sword someone grabs his arm. Before he can get free something hits the side of his head and knocks him out. As he falls one of the Borribles puts a hunting catapult back into his pocket, but Kenny doesn't see it.

oOoOoOo

Kenny wakes in a great underground hall with his hands tied behind his back, facing another of these strange creatures, like the others but wearing a gold-painted jacket and a bronze helmet, his misshapen nose half-concealed by the metal. "All hail Flinthead!" shouts one of the guards.

To Kenny's dismay even Flinthead doesn't feel like a true immortal; there's the same faint buzz he got from the others, but nothing like the power he'd feel from even the newest of his kind. There's nothing for him here.

"So this is the police spy?" says Flinthead.

"Says his name's Kenny," says Shrinkage. "'Course, that's not a name he's _earned,_ not a _real_ name."

"Well, nameless?" says Flinthead, "Are you a spy?"

"No!" says Kenny.

"He had this," says one of the guards, holding up Kenny's sword, well out of reach.

"An assassin then," says Flinthead. "Kill him."

"I came to challenge you," Kenny says hastily. There's only one way to handle maniacs like Flinthead. "Wanted to see if you had the guts to fight me for yourself."

Flinthead smiles, and says "Did you, indeed?" He takes one of the poles from a guard. "Untie him, and give him a rumble stick."

Shrinkage cuts the cable ties around his wrist, and the guards back away. At least a hundred Borribles are watching as one of them throws one of the sticks to Kenny and the fight begins. It's at this point that Kenny realises his mistake; everything he knows about combat is geared towards fighting adults, who are usually reluctant to kill a child. He's never fought someone his own size before, and never with a weapon like this, and his reflexes are hopelessly wrong. Flinthead's fought like this a hundred times, and there's no trace of compassion in his mirthless grin. The fight lasts less than a minute, then the spike is through Kenny's heart.

"Throw him in the river," says Flinthead. "Let the rozzers find him drifting on the tide." The guards scurry to obey.

oOoOoOo

Kenny finally comes back to life as he floats along the filthy stream. It's still night, but he can see something that looks like shore to one side, and swims towards it. It's a mud flat. Kenny scrambles ashore, and starts to plod towards higher ground, the real bank of the river. A few yards and he knows he's made another bad mistake, but by then he's already sunk to his knees, and flailing to get free just makes him sink faster. He struggles, but in a couple of minutes he's going under for the last time, his nostrils and mouth filling with filthy muck.

They say that anything that sinks in the Wandle mud-flats never returns, but that's probably an exaggeration. Maybe one day the channel would shift and wash Kenny free. But a few months later a dredger is sent up the Wandle, clearing some of the muck that blocks an important sewer outlet. On the third day one of the operators feels an odd explosion under the boat, and sees zig-zags of lightning flash across the mud. He doesn't notice the bloody razor-sharp edge of one of the dredging buckets before it goes underwater again, or see the grisly debris it drops into the hold before the next bucket-load covers it. In the end the log says that they must have hit a pocket of methane gas and somehow ignited it. Even the Watchers never learn the true story.


	2. Chapter 2

**Five Deaths That Never Happened to Kenny**

By Marcus L. Rowland

**2: Colorado Springs**  
_(Crossover with Stagate SG-1; spoilers and a little AU for Stargate S7)_

Kenny's looking for a place to hide out, scoping out an isolated house when he sees the occupant, a grey-haired guy wearing sunglasses and an Air Force uniform, load some bags into a pickup truck and drive off. It looks like he's going to be gone at least a couple of days. There isn't an easy entrance for an adult, but someone Kenny's size can always find a way in. This time it's through a cellar window just right for a kid.

There's nobody there, just an empty house and a blinking light on the answering machine. Kenny presses "play," and a voice says "This is Siler calling for the General. Colonel, your cell phone is off. Sorry, the test flight schedule's been pushed forward, the General needs you back here for the next couple of days. Authentication Alpha Alpha Bravo Four Five. Please call in for further instructions when you get this message."

"Okay," thinks Kenny, closing the blinds and checking out the rest of the house. There's no sign of any other residents, there's food in the fridge, and a Playstation and widescreen TV. He ought to be all right overnight, in the morning he can loot the place, get as much as he can carry before heading out.

Kenny helps himself to pizza and a bunch of other stuff he's surprised to find in an adult's fridge (whoever heard of a grown-up liking Jello?), then watches TV for a couple of hours before hitting the sack. In the morning he feels like hell; maybe it's the strange bed, or too much pizza, but he's had more nightmares in a night than he usually has in a month. A lot of them seem to be weird sci-fi stuff, grey aliens that look like ET, weird rooms with flashing lights, paralysis as he floats in the air.

He's eating breakfast when he hears a thud outside, and sees a paper-boy riding off. He waits a couple of minutes, then goes out to fetch a bundle that includes two papers, TV guide, and a copy of Astronomy Today. Nothing to interest Kenny, but he's glancing through anyway when he gets a paper cut... which doesn't heal.

It's decades since Kenny's seen his own blood for more than a few seconds, and it frightens him. He waits to see the sparks as it closes. There's nothing. After he's sucked it for a while it stops bleeding, but the cut's still there. Kenny can't figure it out, and eventually he goes to the bathroom, finds a razor blade, and makes another small cut. This time, as before, it just bleeds. He doesn't want to risk any more experiments, so he finds a couple of Band-Aids and slaps them on, searches the house for valuables and finds a couple of hundred dollars, some games and DVDs, a couple of good watches, and a camera, all he can fit into his shoulder bag, then heads out. If there's something wrong with his Quickening he wants to be somewhere safe, there's no way he's going to risk staying here. The Colonel guy could come back, and Kenny might get _hurt_ if he tries to fight him.

Three days later Kenny still isn't healing, and he's pretty sure his Quickening isn't working at all. He's on the move, sleeping wherever he can break in. He can't even fence the things he steals, there doesn't seem to be anyone around that wants to do business with a kid, so he keeps the cream of the crop and ditches the rest.

Four days, and Kenny has his first wet dream. He knows about sex in theory, but until now that's been all. Hair's starting to grow in his armpits and on his body, and his clothes have started to feel a little tight. He's _aging,_ and terrified. How long is he going to live without the quickening? Eighty years? Fifty? Twenty? He could be run down by a truck and he'd _die,_ no recovering in the morgue.

A week, and the growth spurt seems to have stopped. He judges he's physically about twelve or thirteen, maybe a little more. If his immortality is gone for good what will he do with the rest of his life? He doesn't have any useful skills, and mostly his education is a few hundred years out of date. He can fight, but without the Quickening he doesn't want to risk it.

Ten days, and Kenny is walking down the street, pretending to be just another boy playing hookey, when he sees the headhunter coming towards him. Kenny's too terrified to run; he just keeps going, praying that he won't be recognized. There's no buzz, nothing at all, and the guy doesn't even glance at him as he passes. The Quickening has definitely gone.

Two weeks, and Kenny is breaking into yet another house when he feels dizzy. It isn't the Quickening, just some sort of sickness. He turns to get away, makes it all of four or five steps, then collapses.

Kenny wakes in a hospital bed. He's aching all over, and there must be a dozen tubes going into his body. He manages to focus for a second, and sees someone in surgical greens talking to a cop. "...I don't care how many houses he's robbed, he can't be questioned."

"Did you check out that pig-sticker he was carrying?" asks the cop.

"I saw it," says the doctor. "But this kid's too ill to move, let alone fight."

"Then you'd better call me as soon as he's better."

"That won't be..." says the doctor, then notices that Kenny's eyes are open, and says "Can you hear me, sonny?"

Kenny tries to say something, all that comes out is a moan.

"That's all right," says the doctor, injecting something into his arm. "Don't try to talk. Save your strength."

Kenny's falling asleep again when he hears the cop say "How long has he got?" He's unconscious before there's a reply.

Kenny never regains consciousness. Three days later he's dead, victim of a condition the coroner's report describes as "cellular breakdown." The CDC wastes months looking for signs of Ebola or some similar infection, but finds nothing. Eventually he's cremated.

**oOoOoOo**

Several hundred thousand light years away the real Kenny is beginning to wish that he hadn't killed the alien. He's tried to find food aboard the ship, but there's nothing that looks even vaguely edible, apart from the body, and he's getting nowhere with the controls. He's starving to death, but unable to die, when Loki's spaceship finally leaves the local cluster of galaxies behind a few months later. The Asgard make good ships, and it will be centuries before the hull fails or the engines die and Kenny is finally killed. He'll never know that he briefly had a clone.

**End **

Since I posted the first story I've learned that Myles Ferguson, who played Kenny, died in 2000 aged 19. I think that it's a tribute to his acting that this character is so unlikeable, and hope that nobody will feel that these stories are disrespectful to his memory.


	3. Chapter 3

**Five Deaths That Never Happened to Kenny**

By Marcus L. Rowland 

**3: The Himalayas**

(Crossover with _Batman_ and other DC comics) 

Kenny's not even sure what country he's in when he hears the rumour that there's an immortal somewhere on this mountain, something to do with the mysterious so-called monastery nobody seems to want to discuss. He's gone as close as he dares, but hasn't felt the tingle that says an immortal is present. The guards, armed with swords and AK-47s, suggest that intruders aren't welcome. He guesses it might be a terrorist base or some sort of spy school. While he's checking it out he spends most of his time in the village, pretending to be a refugee, sleeping in out-buildings and hiding from human contact; enough dirt and nobody looks too closely. They even leave bowls of food out for him. Suckers. 

If he can't find the immortal, maybe he can get the immortal to try to find him. There are plenty of peasants around, and one or two won't be much of a loss. Cut off a head, leave it where it's sure to be found, and word will soon get around. He chooses the village headman, he's seen him go up to the monastery twice now so he's obviously connected somehow. Once decided, it's easy to act; that evening the headman's head (try saying that three times fast) finds its way to the steps of the village's Buddhist shrine. Kenny's watching from the shadows when a girl finds it, and the villagers start running about like chickens with their heads cut off. For some reason decapitation metaphors come easily to Kenny. 

Next morning the guys from the monastery are in the village, checking the place out and rooting through every corner. He has to keep moving, but they pay him little attention. They're looking for an adult, not a child. There's still no sign of another immortal. 

That night he kills again, one of the men from the monastery. As usual his advantages are surprise and his size - nobody trains to fight children. It's a hard fight, they're obviously trained martial artists, and there's enough noise to attract attention, but by the time help comes his opponent is dead and he's out of sight. 

The next afternoon four of the monastery people arrive, carrying a litter, draped in red fabric, on which sits an elderly monk. A servant laden with baggage walks behind. When they reach the centre of the village the servant lays out a carpet, on which he sets up a gaudy tent and a brazier. Only when he's finished do the others put down the litter, and the monk sits, lotus-style, in front of the tent, as the servant makes tea. Kenny can't get close enough to feel the presence of an immortal. Everyone else is hiding indoors. When the monk has finished his tea he stands, bows to the litter-bearers, and says "Attack!" They rush at him with bo-sticks and swords, and he defeats them in seconds, apparently without working up a sweat. When the last of them is writhing on the ground he bows again, sits, and waits for his servant to make another cup of tea. Everyone else leaves. 

By nightfall Kenny is sure that this monk isn't an immortal, however good a fighter he is. There's no buzz, and Kenny's sure he's been close enough to feel it if there were. It's a setback, but Kenny can easily handle it; he'll kill the monk too, and wait for the real master to show his face. The monk is still sitting by the tent, his servant snoring on a rattan mat. It'll be a challenge, but Kenny has a simple idea; he goes off and finds a bowl, and returns carrying it, bowing as if awed by the monk's presence. When he gets close enough he throws the bowl of mud into the monk's face, and draws and swings his sword before the monk can recover. The monk almost makes it, dropping flat under the blow as he shakes off the mud, but Kenny's seen that one before - he follows through with a thrust under the monk's chin, cutting his throat, and steps back to let him bleed out. It's only then that he notices the snoring has stopped. 

As Kenny turns a powerful muscular hand seizes his sword-arm with crushing force and pulls him into the air. The servant, or whatever he is, holds Kenny aloft with contemptuous force, ignoring his kicks, and stares at him with dark pityless eyes, his face framed with grey hair raised in satanic points. Kenny tries to grab for the sword with his other hand, but a blow to his shoulder leaves his arm paralyzed. It'll recover in minutes, Kenny knows, but he doesn't have minutes. 

"You have killed my servant," says the stranger, "and for that there can be only one penalty." He takes the sword from Kenny's hand and stabs him through the heart, tosses the sword aside, and is about to discard the body when he notices sparks on Kenny's chest. He watches as the wound closes, and as Kenny inhales convulsively, still dangling from his hand. 

"I see," says the stranger flatly. "An immortal. How droll." For the first time he draws his own sword, as Kenny frantically tries to jerk free, swings it, and connects. The body falls to the ground, the head by its side. He walks away, watching the light show as Kenny's quickening is wasted on the sky. When it's done he gets out a small radio and calls in his servants. 

"What should we do with the body, master?" someone dares to ask as they're packing the tent. 

"Find his watchers, they're probably skulking in one of the villages down-slope, and give it to them." 

"Is there a message, Master?" 

"Just say that it is with the compliments of Ra's al Ghul." 

**End.**

**Note:** Ra's al Ghul (see _Batman Begins_ and numerous story arcs in the Batman comics) is an immortal eco-terrorist who gains his long life from alchemy, not The Quickening. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Five Deaths That Never Happened To Kenny**   
By Marcus L. Rowland   
4: California

(Crossover with _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_) 

Sunnydale is a strange town; he's heard rumours about the place before, and he's seen more demons here in two days than he's seen in other places over the last hundred years. But somewhere around here there's an immortal; he feels the tingle while he's scouting out the high school, but before he really has his bearings the sensation is gone and doesn't return. It would be insanely risky to stay outdoors at night, so he finds a little old lady living alone, a couple of blocks from the school, plays the "I'm lost and I want my mommy" card, and kills her when he's in the house, before she has time to phone social services. The body starts to smell after a few hours, and he drags it out in the back yard late that night and hurries back inside. Something tries the door knob during the night, but doesn't force it open. In the morning the body is gone, apart from a couple of pieces of rib and a fragment of skull which Kenny puts in the garbage. 

On his fourth day Kenny finally gets lucky. By now he has a stolen bicycle, and a pair of binoculars his late landlady probably used to spy on the neighbours. When he feels the tingle of immortality on an otherwise-deserted street he follows the only car in sight, a large white limo with City of Sunnydale plates, license RW III, which proceeds downtown at a stately pace. The sensation persists. When the car finally draws up outside City Hall the only passenger to get out is a forties-looking man with a pleasant wholesome smile. He wipes his hands on a square of white material and carefully drops it into a sidewalk trash can, and heads inside like he owns the place. Kenny rides past the car as it heads round to the parking garage behind City Hall, keeping a cautious distance but close enough to be sure that the tingle is gone; the man who walked inside is the immortal he's chasing. He gives it half an hour then goes into the lobby, ready to tell the receptionist that his Social Studies teacher wants him to write a report about City Hall; he's a little young for it to be convincing, but civil servants are rarely keen observers. In the event he doesn't have to bother, because there's a large portrait of his target on the wall – Mayor Richard Wilkins III. Older portraits of Mayors Richard Wilkins and Richard Wilkins II look like his twins, and Kenny decides that he has all the proof he needs. Richard Wilkins is immortal; Kenny just has to get close enough to him to kill him. 

There are too many people around for Kenny to try anything, and they seem to be alert for some form of trouble. This is Wilkins' base, his centre of power, and by the dates on the portraits it has been for the last hundred years or so. He probably sensed Kenny, though with luck he's expecting an adult. But even a child can't expect to walk behind the scenes unnoticed. Kenny goes off, finds a convenience store, and boosts a chocolate bar and the local paper. He finds what he's looking for on page four – a list of civic events over the next few days. There's a Boy Scout presentation… but the boys will all know each other, he has better luck with adults. A civic banquet, but that's at night and in this town Kenny really doesn't want to risk being outdoors after dark. A dance at the High School tonight, but there's no indication that the Mayor will be there. And hey, right at the bottom, Sunnydale High graduation, with the key address by the Mayor. That'll be out in the open in daylight, lots of escape routes for a kid, especially if he picks his moment carefully. 

At about three Wilkins leaves City Hall. This time he has an escort, a dangerous-looking brunette who moves like a warrior and looks to have several weapons concealed in her clothing. The car takes them to a small amusement park a few miles out of town. Peddling furiously, Kenny follows. From a convenient hilltop he watches as they talk and play miniature golf, then wander around the amusements. The girl throws balls and hoops to win a succession of prizes. Kenny guesses she could throw the knife he glimpses under her jacket just as well. At six they drive back into town, and Kenny loses them for the evening. He hasn't been able to find the Mayor's address, he probably has a mansion somewhere but there isn't time to go looking before dark. 

At about ten Kenny hears howling, and looks out of a window to see three fierce doglike animals loping down the street, pursued by a blonde girl in dark clothing. It looks like she's gaining on them when she goes out of sight. Kenny's heard of the Slayer, he has a feeling he's just seen her in action. It's an added complication, but she'll be looking for monsters – Kenny's a monster too, of course, even he's aware of it, but not the kind she knows. Nevertheless he spends the next couple of days indoors, living out of cans. 

Graduation day dawns bright, and Kenny gets there early, while things are still being set up. There's a raised stage where the dignitaries will be sitting, and Kenny hides underneath when nobody is looking. There are plenty of gaps in the cloth that covers it, and Kenny skilfully cuts a few more to give him lots of peepholes. 

Gradually the audience fills, and eventually he feels the tingle that tells him that an immortal is present. Through the peephole he can see the audience – lots of students, surprisingly few adults – and hopes that Wilkins will assume that the other immortal is someone in the crowd. 

Eventually the speeches begin, and they're as bad as Kenny feared. The Principal insults the graduating class – Kenny suspects that they'd cheer if Kenny killed him – then the Mayor begins a long rambling speech, which Kenny tunes out as he waits to ambush the Mayor as he leaves. He notices that it's suddenly getting dark, and hears the stage creak above him, and people starting to scream. What's going on? Through the peephole he sees dozens of students throw off their robes, revealing the damndest selection of weapons he's ever seen. In the middle of it all, somehow standing above the rest, is the girl he saw chasing the dogs. He's certain now that she's the Slayer. With an ear-splitting crash part of the stage collapses, and Kenny sees a huge scaly form, something between a lizard and a snake, snapping at the students with gigantic jaws. He scrambles out and runs for the cover of the school building, hoping he's too small for the monster to notice. The blonde is taunting it – is she insane? – as he runs up the stairs to the second floor of the school, and peers out over the balcony. At one of the blonde's taunts the monster roars and chases her into the building. The shock as it crashes through a wall knocks Kenny off his feet, and he's still trying to stand when the back of the building explodes, and his body is flooded with the Mayor's Quickening. 

He staggers downstairs, ignoring the chaos around him, desperate to get away, as his mind fills with memories of strange rituals and demons. He's nearly clear when a shabby figure grabs him, sinks its fangs into his neck, and drags him into a sewer. He struggles and bites back, his mouth filling with the vampire's blood, but it's no good. As he dies his Quickening incinerates the vampire. 

Kenny revives later that afternoon, abandoned in a dingy tunnel. He knows nothing but thirst, and the wait for nightfall seems an eternity. But the demon inside him knows that he still has immortality, he'll just have to play by new rules. He's still thinking that when he goes for his first victim, a guy with gelled black hair he finds loading luggage into a car near a mansion in the old part of town. It's his last mistake; the stranger's eyes yellow as he breaks Kenny's grip, then his neck, and finishes him off with a stake to the heart. 

In Willy's bar two groups of watchers meet to compare notes. It's not every day they see two immortals die. Most of them think that this time it's a good reason to celebrate. 

**End.**

Note: In Buffyverse canon Wilkins was immortal long before his final metamorphosis. How Wilkins initially became immortal was never revealed, a demonic cause is implied but since Wilkins was married and never had any children it's possible that it was just innate ability. 


	5. Chapter 5

Here's the fifth and last of my Highlander crossover series, detailing some unlikely fates for Kenny, the immortal child. I really can't believe it's more than four years since I updated this, I hope you'll think it was worth the wait.

Warnings for language, character death, etc.

**Five Deaths That Never Happened To Kenny**  
_By Marcus L. Rowland_

**5: Dade County, Miami, Florida**

Next time, Kenny vows, he'll take the Quickening somewhere that has good transport facilities. He's had to abandon the body and sword in a parking lot at the ass end of nowhere, and it looks like there won't be a bus for at least an hour. To make matters worse, the police are already arriving, a stream of cars with lights blazing; all of them ignoring the cute kid kicking a can down the road away from the action.

As the fifth car passes he senses a pre-Immortal, and wonders if it's worth taking the risk of going back to get a closer look. There isn't much of the power he craves in such a Quickening, but pre-Immortals are usually low-hanging fruit, unwary and easy to kill. It's a dilemma; he solves it by noting the precinct ID on some of the cars. He can use that to track down his prey at leisure.

Six days later Kenny finally identifies his target, in a group of people talking in the precinct parking lot. Some sort of crime scene investigator, he doesn't care about the details beyond that. Until he gets a little closer, and realises that the faint buzz of pre-Immortality has deepened to the slightly stronger pulse of a shiny new Quickening. Somehow his target's been killed, recovered, and come back to work. He's driving a new car, a shiny Kia, and from snatches of conversation he overhears Kenny learns he's been in a car crash; maybe the idiot doesn't even realise he's died, he isn't acting oddly. Car crashes can be like that, Kenny guesses; if you die on the road and wake in the wreck before anyone pulls you out, it must be easy to assume that you were miraculously lucky. He makes a mental note that the new guy must recover from death pretty quickly. New guy touches his head a couple of times – it's probably aching from Kenny's presence – but doesn't know enough to look for someone coming to kill him. Eventually he puts on dark glasses and drives off.

The Quickening of a full Immortal is a lot more attractive, but Kenny's big problem now is that he doesn't have a sword; usually he gets friendly with his victims and kills them with their own weapons, but new guy is so green he's unarmed. That ought to make killing him easier, not harder, except that new guy is big and might be tough. The trick, then, is to find a way to kill him fast, and worry about taking his head once he's down. For that something like a kitchen knife or a cleaver will work nearly as well as a sword; even that's something that an apparent ten-year-old living on the streets can't easily get hold of, but Kenny slips in the kitchen door of a sushi bar and manages to score a nice Ginsu knife, small enough to slip into his sleeve, large enough to kill, without being spotted.

Next day the car's parked at the precinct again, unlocked – who's going to risk stealing a car from the police – and Kenny sneaks in, taking care to avoid being seen by the security cameras, and hides in the back. There's plenty of junk back there, tripods and equipment cases, so it's easy to stay out of sight.

Time passes, and Kenny is already really bored and anxious to make the kill when new guy finally comes back and drives out of the lot. Kenny gives it a couple of minutes, to get well clear of the precinct, then surges to his feet and puts the knife to new guy's throat and shouts "Stop the car, motherfucker!"

New guy looks at him a little surprised, says "I was expecting a midget," and floors the gas pedal instead of the brake. The car accelerates fast, and Kenny has to hold on tight, especially when new guy starts to swerve from side to side. New guy is fast; somewhere along the way he grabs Kenny's wrist and twists it until he's forced to drop the knife, then alternates brakes and accelerator until Kenny is thrown to the floor. He's still trying to stop puking and disentangle himself from the junk on the floor when the car stops again. New guy grabs him and has his hands cuffed behind his back before Kenny can recover, then gets on the radio and calls it in.

"You all right, Lieutenant Caine?" asks the first cop to arrive.

"Fine," says Caine. He picks up the microphone again and says "Let Morgan know that he was right about the blood spatter showing the perp as a small person. I wasn't expecting a kid though."

"Little punks get younger every year," says the cop.

"What I want to know," says Caine, taking off his sunglasses, "is how I'm going to get this kid's puke out of the carpet. I've had this car less than a week."

* * *

Kenny knows that sooner or later he'll get a chance to escape. He's still telling himself that four hours later when they have him in a holding cell at the precinct, waiting for someone from Juvenile Hall to arrive so that they can start questioning him.

"I don't normally believe in basing decisions on my instincts," says the stranger who's standing outside the cell, "because I would find it really hard to dispose of that many bodies."

Kenny looks at him. His badge ID's him as D. Morgan, and his eyes... well, Kenny sees eyes like that when he looks in the mirror, when he isn't trying to pretend to be a normal kid.

"You can't just kill random people," says Morgan. "You have to target the ones that won't be missed. Personally I prefer to be much more selective. Do you think you have that much self-control?"

Kenny tries to think fast. "Maybe."

"Think you can learn?"

"I guess."

"Good thing I don't like Caine. Here…" He tosses a small key through the bars. "Keep this hidden, when they take you to the van for juvenile hall you'll be out in the open. Use the handcuff key then if you can get free, head south. I'll be in a brown Subaru parked two blocks away. I need to go; the cameras will be back on line in a minute." He hurries off, leaving Kenny alone with his thoughts and a small steel key.

* * *

It goes the way Morgan said. Kenny manages to keep the key hidden, gets out of the cuffs half-way to the bus, and runs as fast as he can, dodging clumsy cops and wriggling through gaps that are too small for an adult. Amazingly nobody takes a shot at him, not that it would stop him. Once he's out he heads north of course; whatever game Morgan is playing, Kenny wants no part of it. He makes it nearly a block before the door of a black Toyota swings open in front of him, too fast for him to dodge, and Morgan sticks a hypodermic into his neck and drags him into the car.

* * *

"Normally I like kids," says Dexter Morgan, "But I'm not an idiot."

Kenny struggles, trying to move, slowly realising that he's naked, gagged, and saran-wrapped to a table. There are six photographs hanging where he can see them, he recognizes some of his recent kills.

"An assistant DA called Miguel Prado taught me how to use an escape to get a prisoner where I want him. I'd thank him… if I hadn't had to kill him." He moves to where Kenny can see him clearly, a long sharp knife in his hand. "Your prints have been linked to five other murders over the last three years. How old were you when you killed your first man? Seven? Eight?"

Morgan really has no idea who he's dealing with, nor that Kenny's killed more than a thousand in the last eight hundred years, but that doesn't really help right now.

"I was hoping to help you, maybe get you started on a road that might let you lead a more normal life, but I can see it's not going to happen. You're too far gone. All I can do is make sure that you can't kill anyone else." He studies Kenny's eyes for a second, then says "anything to add?" and pulls the gag from Kenny's mouth.

"You sick fuck, when I get free I'll cut your mphhhh…" Dexter puts the gag back in his mouth.

"Sorry kid. Let's make this fast." He pushes the knife into Kenny's heart. Kenny's last thought is that he's going to come back from whatever shallow grave Morgan buries him in and give him a long lingering death.

Dexter knows he has to work fast, but he's always thorough. He's made his third cut in the body when he notices the first is closing. It freaks him out a little, but he's been tired for days, the baby is teething again, and it's probably just another hallucination. When he cuts off the kid's head, and bolts of lightning throw him across the room, he's a lot more worried. But eventually the lightning stops, the flames flicker out, and he gets on with his work and has the kid neatly packaged for burial at sea within twenty minutes. He's never able to explain it, of course, but he doesn't have to. The little creep is reduced to a Hefty bag of body parts and a drop of blood on a slide, and that's the way he likes it.

Three years later Horatio Caine is dead again; once someone tells him about Immortals and the Game, he starts to treat them all as hostile. Methos reluctantly takes his head, the idiot just wouldn't leave well enough alone. By then Kenny is a bagful of putrescent flesh and bone, half-way to Cuba.

Nobody ever knows what Dexter did. Even if he's caught, there's some stories he'll never want to tell. After all, he wouldn't want anyone to think he was crazy…

**End.**

Crossover with _CSI: Miami_ and _Dexter._


End file.
